There is no need for an excuse to visit St Andrews when the sun is shining on a brisk spring day, the gorse is in bloom, and the saltire stands out stiff, as if starched, in the breeze. But those knots of soberly dressed people outside the Holy Trinity Church in St Andrews at 12.30 on Monday, 25th April did have a reason to be in the home of golf. They were there for the service to celebrate the life of Renton Laidlaw, the golf correspondent turned broadcaster who had died in October last year.x
Renton’s first and last names could have been interchanged without difficulty. Remember Laidlaw Purves, the Scottish-born surgeon who was the founder and first captain of Royal St George’s golf club in Sandwich, Kent. He could just as easily have been Purves Laidlaw. Laidlaw Renton would have worked though not so well as Renton Laidlaw did. Few people in golf are known only by their first name. Tiger, obviously; Arnold, obviously. But it tells you a lot about the esteem, indeed love, in which Renton Laidlaw was held that throughout golf you had only to mention his first name and everyone knew whom you were talking about and nearly everyone would smile at the mention of his name. He was one of the most-loved men in golf.
The Holy Trinity Church is one of nearly 50 churches in Fife under threat of closure on account of a shortage of clergy as well as a congregation. If so, those who attended Renton’s service will remember it for its magnificent nave, its soaring barrel roof and its transepts. It may be a church, but to many it resembled a cathedral. It would be a stretch to say that on this April afternoon the rafters vibrated with the strength of the singing of the 275 gathered because that was rather muted, but those rafters certainly heard some good reminiscences, and laughter rang out again and again.
The service and the reception later at the Old Course Hotel were initiated by Jennifer Laidlaw, Renton’s sister, and organised by Mitchell Platts, a former golf correspondent of The Times. Stories were the common theme. And the common theme of the stories was Renton’s kindness. Person after person spoke of how welcoming he was, of how he always had a smile on his face, just as he was a masterful storyteller who had that rare gift of sounding as though he had a chuckle in his voice. The stories about him were many and funny.
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